If Germany was aware of WWI French mutinies...

J

Jeff Simmons

Active member
There were many causes for the French mutinies that occurred on the Western Front in May and June, 1917. The soldiers were poorly paid, unable to spare money to send home, and their families were going hungry. They had inadequate leave facilities with nothing much to do except drink wine; discipline was extremely harsh. Despite these hard conditions, the French maintained 4/5 of the line and fought valiantly.

The tipping point was the Battle of the Aisne. Gen. Robert Nivelle, who devised the plan, claimed that it would bring an end to the war in just a few days. He promised the government in Paris that if he did not achieve immediate success, he would call off the attack. At the outset, his troops believed in his plan. He amassed 1.2 million troops and 200 tanks along a 40-mile front from Soissons to Reims. After the typical WWI bombardment ended, the troops went over the top on April 16 and headed up the slopes to their first objective, the Chemin des Dames Ridge.

A whole lot of things went wrong. It was pouring rain, making the slopes up to the ridge quite treacherous. Most of the tanks were knocked out before they reached the battlefield. The Germans drove the French from the skies, making aerial observation impossible, leaving the artillery to fire blindly by timetable alone. The troops could not keep up with that timetable, so when the artillery shifted forward, German machine gunners came out of their dugouts and mowed down the advancing troops. The result was 120,000 casualties in two days.

When questioned by the government, Nivelle assured that he was making tremendous progress and pushed on. Reminded of his pledge to call off the attack if it went awry, Nivelle refused to stop the attacks. The troops had long since lost their confidence in Nivelle and his plan. They made sounds of sheep being led to slaughter when passing their commanding officers on their way to the front.

Then, in late May, word began to spread that some units in rear areas were refusing to return to the front. By June, half of the French Army was refusing orders. One group in particular called on troops to march on Paris. Others agreed to hold the line, but not attack.

Miraculously, the Germans did not know what was happening.

Thus my question is this: Had the Germans known about the extent of the mutinies, how would that have changed the outcome of the war? Could the Germans have exploited the situation and pushed easily through the lines? Hmmm...
 
Personally I don't think it would have made a blind bit of difference whether the Germans knew about the mutiny or not as I tend to believe that the French troops would not have just let the Germans through and lost the war to spite the Generals.

It is more likely that they would have held the line but done little else.
 
I don’t believe that the Germans (if they had know about it) could have exploited the situation since the French troops had declared that they would man the trenches and defend against attack; but would not put in senseless assaults.
 
Last edited:
Also I believe that by 1917, it would have taken something as catastrophic as revolutions in Britain and France to effect a German victory. Germany was simply too exhausted at that point to defeat the French or British without expending too many resources which would make their gains backfire and ensure an even greater defeat.

From what I have read, after 1917, both Britain and France were beating Germany in terms of production. Turkey was also about to fall, thus unhinging the German's southern flank. German rolling stock was also insufficient to carry the resources of the territories gained by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk along with the German soldiers on that front; Germany would have to choose one or the other.

I believe that if the Germans had taken Paris at any time after 1917, it would have stretched their troops to the breaking point and their tenuous hold on Paris and occupied France would have been easily shattered and they would have been soundly defeated by the Allies.
 
Good points

All good points. I, too, doubt that the French would have held the door open for the Germans to walk through. However, the mutinies created more than a bit of cacophony, and I wonder how well a defense would have been coordinated (ie, would there have been weak spots in the line that could have been exploited?) It's just a thought...
 
The defense was still well coordinated. In fact, whenever the Germans attacked; the French divisions still fought back tenaciously. Also the French had adopted a zone defense tactic based on firepower that even in 1918 the German army still couldn’t defeat.

So I don’t think that anything would change.
 
One of the things that continually chafes me is "war Games" where I am required to "charge" or Assault to make an attack.

Even the bravest soldier is going to balk at having his life wasted for little or no purpose. "Over the top" certainly looked like that to the soldier in the trenches. (I saw a special on Gettysburg that suggested a large percentage of Pickett's men refused to make the suicide charge.)

If the Germans has tried to exploit the "mutiny" is is more likely the French Soldier's would have displaced their hatred and fear against the Kaiser than their own leaders. On the other hand, Lenin overthrew Russia at nearly the same time.
 
Back to the Aisne

Hardlec...I think most of the soldiers on the Aisne offensive saw their charges as having no purpose; after the assault on the first ridge, there was another and another that had to be taken, and progress was minimal while casualties were high. Too high. And that is why the mutiny spread.

I must point out that things on the 40-mile Aisne front didn't get under control until Nivelle was sacked and replaced by Petain, who used the same tactics he'd used successfully at Verdun: short, bite-and-hold goals that could, in fact, be taken successfully. At that point, soldiers became much more willing to attack. Petain stopped the offensive after the Chemin des Dames Ridge -- the first one on Nivelle's broad list -- was captured and held.

An interesting note you made about Lenin; he promised "peace, land and bread," and that was all the crowds needed to hear before overthrowing the czar. Once the initial soviet was formed, the organization's first order was to abolish any privileges of rank in the military. That meant no one had to take orders from anyone else. The Russian soldiers didn't sit around and debate the authority of the soviet. Units marched where they wanted to, but most of them simply abandoned their positions and started the long walk home.

I bring up the Lenin reference because some of the mutinous French units declared that they would march on Paris and take matters into their own hands. Not all of the units, but some, and they had weapons. The French people as well were nearly as tired, hungry and war-weary as the soldiers at the front. If a charismatic revolutionary leader had risen in France at that very moment, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say the French government would have had something to worry about.
 
I think the Mutinies did a lot during and after the war: Leadership started to realize they had an accountability to the people they lead.

France had an ally in Britain, and the "enlightened" British leadership had less trouble (certainly boatloads, but less trouble.)

The Russians had probably the worst leadership in Europe with the Czar.

The French did learn from their problems and made corrections, which is probably what lead to their ultimate victory.
 
Also remember guys, the Russian revolution, and the problems inherent with their military at the time really can't be compared with the French Mutinies... to try and compare the two would be to ignore about 50 years worth of preceeding context in Russia - social tensions and unrest that had been brewing in Russia since the Serfs were emancipated that Lenin was able to take advantage of. The average French soldier might've been almightily narked off, but France as a country wasn't about to collapse.

Apples and Oranges. :)
 
Russian situation vs. French

You're right, Botak; there are striking differences in the Russian and French situations as they played out. For example, the Russians started on the revolutionary path as early as 1905. But among some mutinous French units, there was a significant amount of talk about communism as a solution. I maintain that given the circumstances, if there was an emergence of a charismatic leader like Lenin who told the soldiers and citizens what they wanted to hear, French history could have, in fact, turned out much differently.
 
The German Hi command did know

I am currently reading Cataclysm by David Stevenson in which he states that German records show that the Germans where aware but given the mood the men where in plus the increasing social tension they did not want their troops to know for fear that they too would would mutiny.

Some one in the thread also mentioned that the Germans where really not able to exploit the situation and that too certainly was true but (all ways a but :)) it appears the overriding reason was fear that their rank and file would do the same.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top